Ex-Goldman Guy Wants $500M To Give Away Lightbulbs In India

The former head of Goldman Sachs’ carbon trading unit, Ken Newcombe, is looking to raise $500 million to for his own carbon finance firm, C-Quest Capital.

Newcombe tells Reuters he’ll use the money for clean energy projects like replacing incandescent light bulbs in Indian homes with compact fluorescents. Other projects include “land management in the U.S. and Australia, including soil sequestration, growing biofuel crops, and planting trees.”

For each of these projects, Newcombe gets carbon credits which he can sell to polluters at a profit. The U.N. checks out the project to make sure it’s up to snuff, which can take 1-2 years, before selling him credits.

The Indian project will distribute 13 million bulbs to 4.5 million homes. No word on how much the light bulb distribution plan costs. Newcombe says it will cut emissions by 1 million tonnes. For each ton of carbon eliminated C-Quest gets a credit.

Those credits were selling for $14.54 (10.05 euros) on the European Climate Exchange yesterday.